Your Right to Know

With each passing deadline, the story of campaign finances in the Ohio governor’s race remains the same. It’s Kasich, by a quite a bit.

Gov. John Kasich outraised Democratic nominee and Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald by a better than 2-to-1 ratio in the period that ended yesterday, giving Kasich a cash advantage of $9.3 million to FitzGerald’s $1.9 million less than five months before Election Day.

Kasich pulled in $2 million from April 18 through June 6, including donations of $12,000 (or more) from a Koch brother and several members of the Lindner family, and a $500,000 infusion from the Ohio Republican Party state candidate fund.

FitzGerald raised $860,000, but $133,000 of it came in yesterday before the 4 p.m. deadline — and $117,500 of that was infusions from the Ohio Democratic Party. FitzGerald’s 13 largest contributors were unions.

Kasich’s $9.3 million is believed to be a state record for this point in a governor’s race, besting then-Gov. Ted Strickland’s $7.7 million in June 2010. FitzGerald has $3 million less at this point than Kasich did as the challenger in 2010. Kasich beat Strickland by 2 percentage points that year.

Kasich’s cash advantage over FitzGerald was $6.5 million in January and $7 million in April; it is $7.4 million now.

“FitzGerald really needs to raise a significant amount of money this summer to be able to compete,” said John Green, a University of Akron political-science professor. “I don’t think it’s impossible, but it’s certainly going to be a great challenge.”

In a brief, emailed statement, Kasich campaign manager Matt Carle said he is “confident we’ll have the resources we need to continue telling Ohio’s comeback story.”

FitzGerald, who spoke directly to reporters before the Ohio Democrat Party’s state fundraising dinner that featured former President Bill Clinton in Columbus last night, sounded upbeat. He said Kasich “is always going to have more money. The question is, are we going to have enough resources to tell our side of the story?

“If you look at the pace at which we’re raising money, it keeps accelerating, and I think we are going to have the resources,” FitzGerald said.

Kasich’s report included more than $740,000 in spending on TV commercials that have aired. FitzGerald, for whom low name recognition remains a problem, according to polling, has yet to go on TV but has released one radio ad. His report showed about $185,000 in spending on “media” production.

Green said that FitzGerald “probably needs to be up on TV now,” but that September is a crucial month for him.

When Redfern’s comments were relayed to FitzGerald in a paraphrase, he frowned and said, “You’ll have to go back and ask Chris again, because we’ll make that decision with our media team, (and) we haven’t decided yet.”

David Koch of the conservative energy-conglomerate Koch Industries contributed the maximum $12,155 to Kasich. Koch is one of the “Koch brothers” prominent in political circles for the money they spend on conservative causes and candidates.

Among FitzGerald’s max donors were the state committees of firefighters and teachers unions and the United Auto Workers.

In down-ticket races, no Democrat outraised a Republican since the April filing. GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted has a nearly 6-to-1 cash advantage over his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Nina Turner. Turner has slightly less money in the bank than she did in April ($494,000).

Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel, facing state Rep. Connie Pillich in the fall, spent $4,500 on airfare in the past few months and 25 cents on a parking meter.